#hotep-ra

We really don't talk about this moment enough.

Even before knowing that was actually Danny in disguise, the second Sam heard he might have got hurt, she jumped into action, disregarding her safety and ignoring the very real danger of both a hypnotised Tucker and Hotep-Ra, ready to throw hands with a potentially dangerous ghost in defence of her best friend.

Chapter 46 of Blood and Soul: Threads of both Worlds is out!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/53672197/chapters/195512121

My first attempt at making an AU. Please be gentle.

….

Tucker is the reincarnation of Dullaman, the son of Chay-Ara and Bashari better known by their current incarnations Shayera “Hawkgirl” Hol and John “Green Lantern” Stewart.

Chay-Ara, Khufu and Bashari where in a triad and Khufu named Dullaman his successor.

Sam, Danny and Valerie’s previous incarnations were lovers of Dullaman

Sam’s past incarnation was Semat, a noble betrothed to Dullaman.

Danny’s past incarnation was Pakhom, a priest of Osiris and childhood friend of Dullaman.

Valerie’s past incarnation was Valia, the half Amazonian bodyguard of Dullaman.

Hotep-Ra was insanely jealous of Dullaman’s magical abilities so he created the Scarab Scepter to control the boy pharaoh. Hotep-Ra’s control was so great he even got Dullaman to kill Semat, Pakhom and Valia.

Bashari was out on campaign but when he returned and found out what happened he had Hotep-Ra mummified alive and cursed.

Dullaman ended up cursing himself and his lovers to be reborn together and then killed himself

Bashari had the four buried together in Dullaman’s tomb.

The Seven on Swords, featuring Hotep-Ra, for the dptarotproject!

This is the first part of a "mixed 'n complex": done with black ballpoint pen, but will be finished in digital. Stay tuned for the colored version!

[Oh, and a lot more of our Danny Phantom fanarts: Here’s our tag]

Meet “Septimus Heap” characters:

For a while now, I've been thinking and I can't help but feel like, for most of the show, Team Phantom isn't so much as a team as it the hero and his two (later three) sidekicks. And that's mostly because Sam and Tucker especially don't have many ways to stand out outside of their civilian lives. Yes, Sam is the vegan, environmentalist goth, and Tucker is the tries-too-hard-to-be-popular techno geek and comic relief. But when it comes to fighting Danny's enemies, even though they always have his back, most of the time, they simply follow him around with an extra thermos.

I already have ideas on how this could be solved if the show was rebooted, mainly by giving each member a more specific and unique skillset and role within the team, but that's a topic for another day.

Right now, what I want to talk about is how much the show and the characters would gain if each member of Team Phantom had their own set of enemies that felt more personal instead of all of the ghosts having a bone to pick only with Danny. You know, a set of opponents that either represent what they hate or embody their worst character traits, forcing them to confront the worst part of themselves and grow from the experience.

After all, Danny's secret identity is common knowledge in the Ghost Zone, and that includes his best friends and sister, who either regularly hang out with him or help him fight ghosts. With this in mind, it wouldn't be far-fetched to believe some members of his Rogue Gallery would come to have a more heated rivalry with Sam, Tucker, or Jazz rather than with Danny.

Speaking of, since he is the protagonist and everything revolved around him already, Danny clearly doesn't have this problem. He already has great nemeses in Vlad and Dark Danny, both of them embodying his worst traits and what he could turn into if he isn't careful, and his complicated rivalry with Valerie. So, aside from some more focus and development that never hurts anyone, there's not much to be done in that regard.

But what about the rest of Team Phantom?

1. Tucker

As I said, a good nemesis is either a dark reflection of yourself, a cautionary tale of what the wrong path could turn you into, or someone who forces you to confront the worst parts of yourself and to move past them. Needless to say, these types of rivalries are always personal. And Tucker has several good contenders for the position of his nemesis.

In particular, I'm thinking Tucker's ghost self from What You Want, Technus, and Hotep-Ra.

This is because Tucker is characterised as someone who longs to stand out and be recognised and who can develop a pretty nasty streak when he's shown up by others. He is very prone to envy and self-serving tirades. This is why Ghost Tucker and Hotep-Ra would be great fits for him. After all, they both represent who Tucker is at his absolute worst, and Hotep-Ra has the added bonus of having used him to fulfill his own agenda. Manipulation is never a good look.

As for Technus, don't tell me a rivalry between these two doesn't just make sense. I mean, a techno geek and the ghost of technology would certainly nuke it out. Technus should have focused on Tucker much more than on Danny, thanks to all his advanced gadgets and shared interests. If anyone could power Technus up as well as rile him up by claiming to possess the superior technological know-how, that's Tucker.

And just to make it extra personal, we could always take Teacher of the Year and have Technus target Tucker in specific and deceive him into explaining the game to him, leading to Tucker feeling betrayed and like a fool, and all that much more determined to defeat him.

2. Sam

While the Phandom disagrees on just how bad it is, the general consensus is that Sam's greatest flaws are her forcefulness and hypocritical tendencies. And what better way to have her confront those facts about herself and get some character development than by facing off enemies that take those flaws to the extreme?

In Sam's case, I'd say we keep Undergrowth as a rather personal enemy for her. But just how I explored in my "rewrite" of Urban Jungle long ago, let's change Undergrowth turning Sam into a mindless puppet into a far more deliberate choice.

Undergrowth represents Sam's love for nature and environmentalism, but with zero restraints as to how it might affect others. We should explore that idea! Have Undergrowth manipulate Sam by toying with her desire to make the world a better place and her cynicism that nobody but her cares into having her "ally" herself with him. By the time she manages to snap out of his control, Sam would be horrified at what she allowed to happen and resolve to be more careful with her activism in the future.

Then, there's Walker. This might sound a little out of left field, but hear me out.

If we're saying one of Sam's greatest flaws is her tendency for hypocrisy, then it would only make sense to pair her off with the shows biggest hypocrite after Vlad!

Not to mention, Walker also represents everything Sam "anti-establishment" Manson hates: abuse of power, the establishment, forcing your views and ideas onto others... He also hurt Wulf, who essentially amounts to a large, sapient animal. The realisation of not being so different from someone like Walker would be appalling to Sam! It would allow her to be aware of her tendencies and to work to keep them in check.

And finally, Ember.

This might sound even weirder, but I think it has the potential to become a very interesting rivalry even if they wouldn't necessarily be nemeses. Basically, because Ember has the potential to be that one ghost that Sam would have some personal beef with.

Much like Walker, Ember represents what the nonconformist, individualistic side of Sam hates. She presents herself as the key to teenage rebellion and individuality, yet her modus operandi is mind controlling people with her music into idolising her and buying her products, essentially becoming a vehicle for superficial consumerism and a poser. Not to mention, Sam has been shown to nurse grudges for a long time, and Ember toyed with her and Danny's feelings when she placed her love spell on him. Emotional manipulation is not something you just forgive.

3. Jazz

Admittedly, I haven't thought about Jazz's potential enemies as much, but I do have a few ideas.

First and foremost, her nemeses should 100% be Penelope Spectra (and Bertrand), after all, they are direct foils of each other.

Both have shown interest in psychology and (seemingly) reach out to others, especially Danny, to help them. However, whereas Jazz is genuinely well-meaning, albeit a bit of a know-it-all and a busybody, Spectra only cares about helping herself and is actually very harmful to the kids under her care.

(To be honest, while I maintain Spectra should be Jazz's most personal enemy, I also think she should target Sam in specific at some point. After all, Sam is the one responsible for Danny's accident and the whole ghost mess. The guilt she'd exude from that should make her a prime target for someone who feeds off of misery like Spectra. But that's a topic for another day).

For her other more personal enemies, I'm thinking Youngblood because he forces her to confront the fact that she's not as much of a grown-up as she likes to believe (like in canon), and maybe Johnny 13 and Kitty for targeting, manipulating, and almost possessing her. Although in their case, I can also picture an interesting twist: seeing as they aren't usually intentionally malicious, just have a lot of couple issues they need to work through, Jazz could try to help them in hopes of peacefully ridding Danny of two more headaches to deal with. Knowing Jazz, she could turn it into a thesis on how even ghosts have the capability to grow beyond their obsessions and flaws they retained upon death.